Distraught. Exasperated. Indignant. One cannot possibly comprehend the convoluted layers of sorrow and anger internalized by the victims of tyrannical abuse of power by the supposed “officers of law”. Betrayed. The utopian hopes of social protection and prosperity have long perished inside martyrs’ hearts.
One by one, their brothers and sisters succumb in the hands of the carceral state. “I can’t breathe” exclaimed the 46 year old black man by the name of George Floyd as the vile enforcer of law kneels on his moribund body, slowly losing life. His death is only one of the many cataclysms attributed to the abuse of power by several law enforcers. The accumulative burdens from such acts of oppression triggered a social tipping point.
The Black community along with the global support that they have garnered through emotional and rational connections have decided to proclaim their everlasting struggles through protesting. The economic repercussions felt by a myriad of industries are significant. In order to prepare for the potential damage through vandalism or looting, states and companies have splurged on additional protection.
It is also exacerbated due to the predicted delay in lifting nationwide Covid-19 restrictions. California has spent $2 million and an additional $900,000 on that, while the Australian economy is expected to endure a 1 billion AUD cost. The sheer magnitude of this deep-rooted quagmire is obvious. However, one must ponder, what may possibly be the catalyst of such a cataclysm? And, what can be done to resolve such complex predicament?
Catalyst to the cataclysm
To decipher the definite catalyst of such a convoluted issue is surely an Augean task. A deep delve into police history uncovers the fact that policing in the United States emerged in 1704 from slave patrol. They were tasked to maintain the slavery system by enforcing compliance amongst privately owned slaves and recapturing escapees. A number of journalists and activists perceive the police's inherent dark history as one significant contributor towards its abundance of misconduct observed in today’s society. Peeking through the lens of economics can also enlighten us with a possible cause of police abuse of power.
One prominent economic theory which can be applied to this predicament is the principal-agent theory. The principal-agent relationship refers to a reciprocal relationship in which a principal (one who owns assets) employs agents to manage said assets for them. Being contracted professionally, it is to be expected that the agents internalize and strive to accomplish the same goal as the principal.
However in practice, agents are incentivized to pursue their self-interest (Bosse & Phillips, 2016) in order to reap private gains. Misconducts fuelled by narrow self-interest would then cause a divergence between the two participants’ goals. The two parties are not endowed with the same amount of information as the principals cannot be certain and do not have the capability to control the agents’ actions (information asymmetry).
Applied to the situation at hand, police officers can be perceived as agents of both the general public (directly employed by the government) and the police chiefs (which are in charge of managing their daily tasks) (Mitnick, 1975). Ideologically, the police are physical materializations of communal security as their sole task is to provide society with protection.
Society portrays its compliance with this constitutional ideology by allocating a portion of their income to pay taxes that fund the police. Additionally, police chiefs are tasked to manage and contract police officers to conduct policing activities.
